Deck the Halls
by Smitty91
Summary: Brian decides to spend the holiday season with his new girlfriend, Rita Landow.
1. Chapter 1

Deck the Halls

Rita kept stealing glances at Brian when the slender dog wasn't looking, which was much of the eight-hour drive. Brian loved the desert. Rita was sure that the slender dog could have happily passed the entire drive just watching the golden, red, and white sands roll by, barking at the tumbleweeds like he was back in grade school and watching the vultures circle overhead like a big "Welcome Home" banner. That was why Rita had offered to drive, even though it was Brian's car. But Brian broke up these studies with quick looks back at Rita, tongue hanging out in a wide grin, saying, "You doing okay?", to which Rita always replied, "Yeah," and pretended to be keeping her eyes on the road even though she could have kicked back and taken a nap and the car would've kept right on going down the ramrod-straight I-10.

Part of the reason she was bringing Brian home for Christmas was that her boyfriend was one of those weird people who legitimately loved Christmas. Sharing it had been a big deal. He'd never understood her own disinterest in the holiday, so Rita thought that a few days with her insane family might help clear the air. Rita had other reasons for bringing Brian home, too, but none of those had to do with Brian specifically.

Hopefully it would get Peggy to quit bugging her about coming home for Christmas. Her older nephew Richie had managed to miss the last two by being abroad. Rita had made noises last year about joining Richie overseas rather than coming home, which had alarmed his aunt to the point that she had tried to buy Richie a plane ticket to come home this year and had called Rita nearly every week as the days grew shorter telling her that her cousin was coming home and she should too.

Richie was not, of course, coming, and Rita knew this as well as she knew that she had to. She'd wanted to skip the family Christmas for years. She knew her family would never understand. As much as she wanted to miss Christmas, she couldn't just stop going the way Richie had. She would have to get her family to stop inviting her.

"You'll have a Christmas tree, right?" Brian said.

"Two of them, probably," Rita snorted. "One big one for the living room and one for the rec room."

Brian's tail thumped against the seat. "Wow! Two trees? Do your friends put up lights?"

Rita rolled her eyes. "Just you wait."

Indeed, there was no missing their house once she turned onto the familiar block. Lights blinked along every edge and crevice of the usually modest two-story house. Both of the trees in the yard were glowing like a nuclear disaster, as Richie had once said. But the lights weren't the worst of it. In the yard, garish snowmen fought for space with immense plastic candy canes under the malevolent gaze of a huge inflated Grinch.

"I remember the year we got the Grinch," Rita said as they drew closer. "I begged Peggy not to put it up, but she didn't listen to me."

"I think it's great," Brian said, eyes fixed on the house as they drew closer. "Really bright and cheery."

"You're going to love my family."

"I hope they like me."

Rita was silent.

Her aunt must have seen them park, because she was waiting by the door when Rita opened it, her bag slung over her shoulder. Brian came in behind her and closed the door, waiting politely while Rita's aunt got the obligatory "How are you, I haven't seen you in so long" hug out of the way.

"Let me look at you," Peggy said, holding her at arm's length. "Oh, life is agreeing with you, I can tell. I'm so glad you're home. Gillian is out with Mark, but they'll be back for dinner. I'm making roast beef and mashed potatoes. Do you still like gravy with your potatoes?"

"Sure," Rita shrugged.

Only then did Peggy notice Brian. "Oh, who's this?" Without waiting for an answer, Peggy said, "I'm sorry. I'm Peggy Landow, Rita's aunt."

Brian looked at Rita, his ears going down. "Rita, didn't tell you I was coming?"

"Oh, no, she likes to spring things on me." Rita's aunt gave a short, forced laugh. "But we're delighted to have you. Always room for one more, Rita knows that."

Faced with her aunt in the flesh, Rita hesitated, the word "boyfriend" trapped on her tongue. "Thanks, Aunt Peggy," she said, cursing herself for lacking the courage to follow through on her plans.

"We've made up your old room," Peggy said, "and I'll just bring up one of the air mattresses for Brian. I'm in the middle of dinner now, so I need to go make sure the roast doesn't burn."

"Okay," Rita said, waving to Brian to follow her up the stairs.

"You didn't tell them," Brian said, but he didn't sound angry; he sounded disappointed.

"No, I guess not," Rita said.

"You didn't even tell them I was coming."

"Well . . ." Rita didn't want to argue with Brian, especially not now. "They'd never let us stay in the same room if they knew."

"Oh." The dog followed her into her room silently, dropping his own bag on the floor while Rita tossed hers onto the bed. "I was just thinking it was nice to have a family accept me."

"I'm sure they'll accept you once they know," Rita said. "I'm gonna tell them tonight." Maybe if she promised Brian she would, she'd have the courage to go through with it.

"Oh, no!" Brian grabbed her shoulders. "You mustn't do anything that would ruin Christmas!"

Rita almost laughed at the alarm in her boyfriend's eyes, but she managed to stop herself. "Don't worry. I won't say anything to ruin Christmas." And then she heard the creak that meant that someone was coming up the stairs. Seeing a clever solution to her problem, she leaned in close to Brian and pressed her muzzle to the dog's for a nice, deep, passionate kiss.

Brian resisted at first, mumbling something around Rita's tongue like, "What if," but he didn't get any more of the question out. They remained locked together long enough for Rita to hear a brushing at the door. She cupped her ear to hear better and heard her aunt's soft intake of breath, then the footsteps as she hurried away.

Brian, with his back to the door and his ears focused on Rita, had missed it. He smiled at Rita as they parted and licked her nose. "Okay, I don't mean to be weird about it. It just . . . it means a lot to me."

"I know," Rita said. "I think it's sweet."

Rita's aunt still hadn't brought the air mattress up when she called them down to dinner half an hour later. Walking past him on her way into the dining room, Rita caught the minty scent of Listerine and knew that that meant Peggy had gone straight from her room to the liquor cabinet. She wondered if he'd confront her about it or if he'd just pretend it wasn't happening.

"Oh, Brian," Peggy said as the dog followed Rita in, "I've put your air mattress down in the rec room with Mark. There's more room in there and . . . I think you'll be more comfortable."

Meaning: I'll be more comfortable, Rita thought, but she didn't finish the thought or register Brian's "Oh," because at that moment she saw who else was seated at the table.

Her uncle was pouring wine for everyone. The glass he was currently filling was held in a large black paw that did not belong to a fox. The other black paw lay on the table, on top of the smaller black paw of Rita's cousin Gillian, and the owner of the paws said, "Thanks, Mr. Landow," and turned to look at Rita as he put his glass back

"What is he doing here?" Rita said.

The wolf grinned at Rita, cupping his black paws under his chin. "Hi, Rita. How've you been?"

"He's my boyfriend," Gillian said. "You remember Mark, I guess."

"Yeah," Rita said, sitting down hard in her chair.

"You want some wine?" Her uncle hovered over her as Brian took the chair next to her.

"Oh, yeah." Rita held up her glass.

Mark took a sip of his wine. "Alice says you're at UBC, right?"

Cautious, Rita looked back at him. "Yeah."

"That's cool. I got a scholarship to ASU, but I haven't made the team yet. It's way harder in college."

"You play sports?" Brian leaned into the conversation.

"Yeah, Mark was the champion figure skater in our high school," Rita said.

Mark laughed, while Gillian glowered at Rita. "I play baseball. I'm not that good, but I'm working at it."

"Are you studying anything, or just playing games?" Rita asked.

"Oh, I'm majoring in communications," Mark said. "I want to be a broadcaster if I don't make it in the big leagues."

"I think that's so clever of him," Rita's aunt said, bringing in a plate of green beans and setting them beside the steaming mashed potatoes. "Don't you think so, Hal?"

Rita's uncle was putting away the wine. He now turned to sit down. Before he could answer, Gillian jumped in. "You don't have to patronize him, Mom. ASU is a good school. I'm applying there, too."

"You're also applying to Cal and Stanford," Rita's uncle said. "And you're going there if you get in."

Gillian didn't say anything, but Rita didn't miss the look she gave him. Gillian was perfectly capable of going to ASU if she decided that was what she wanted. Rita had only briefly considered ASU; it would have been much cheaper and she could have probably paid her own way and been free of obligation to her family, but most of the kids from her high school who bothered with college had also gone there, and that was not a world she was keen to re-enter.

"We played Stanford last week," Mark said. "They kicked our butts." He lowered his head and looked around the table.

Rita's uncle forced out a brief laugh and waved the faux pas aside. "Wait 'til you get on the field, right, Mark?"

"Hal, this is Brian," Rita said. "He's a friend of mine."

"Hi," Brian said.

"Hal Landow," Rita's uncle said, but didn't get up to shake Brian's paw. "Welcome." Rita could tell by his demeanor that her cousin had told him what he'd seen.

"Thank you for having me," Brian said.

"All right, who wants roast beef?" Rita's aunt brought the platter into the dining room and set it down. "Hal, will you carve?"

While the food was being distributed, Rita kept sneaking looks at Mark. She was sure her cousin had started dating the jock just to torment her. Memories of having her muzzle shoved in the toilet, of being knocked down in gym class again and again, of her eighth-grade science project being trashed, all swam before her eyes as she looked at the wolf who was squeezing her cousin's paw and happily taking a plate of meat from her uncle. And he didn't even know I was heterosexual then, Rita thought. Imagine if he knew. Of course, it's probably all latent homosexuality channeled into aggression. All jocks are like that.

And that gave her an idea.

As her uncle handed her food over to her, she leaned across the table and said, "So, Mark, I forget . . . . Are you a pitcher or a catcher?"

The wolf looked back, bemused. "Right field, actually."

"Oh, right." Rita sat back with a grin and smiled at Brian, who was looking at her with his muzzle tilted. This dinner might be fun after all, she thought. "I didn't hear you guys come in," she said to Gillian, knowing she'd likely walked back from behind the house. Mark always parked back there when he had a car, his senior year; around Christmas it had the advantage that there were no garish lights, so the yard remained dark and their friends could not always see when they came in, or who with.

"We came in the back door," Gillian said.

"Oh, right." Rita nodded and looked at Mark. "You guys use the back door a lot?"

Mark looked at Gillian, then back at Rita. "Whenever we walk back from my house, yeah."

Brian was looking more annoyed now, but Rita was smirking to herself and having a much better time than she'd anticipated. She reached for a salad bowl. "Hey, Mark, want me to toss your salad for you?"

"Uh . . . sure, thanks." The wolf held out his bowl.

"We have a community baseball team in Vancouver," Rita went on. "I'm a switch-hitter, but we don't have a lot of people, so I'm also a bat girl." She gave the wolf his salad and a smile.

"Hey, that's cool," Mark said. "Community sports are great."

"I didn't know you played baseball," Rita's uncle said.

"Oh, I don't," Rita said, then, realizing she'd gone a little too far, said, "Not yet. I mean. We've just practiced a bit and we're getting ready to play in the spring."

Gillian had caught on and was now glaring at Rita too, so she eased back for a bit, but she felt a warm sense of triumph. When her uncle raised his wine glass and said "Cheers," Rita looked at Mark and said, "Bottoms up."

For the rest of the meal, Rita continued to toss flirty gay terms at the clueless jock, enjoying herself immensely. Brian spent quite a lot of time talking to Rita's aunt about her decorations or cooking or something. Rita's uncle, at the other end of the table, tried to talk to Mark about sports, but both Gillian and Rita kept interrupting to turn the conversation to their own ends, Rita just to work in more gay slang, Gillian to talk about the party some friends of hers were throwing that night.

They had barely finished eating when Gillian grabbed Mark's paw and announced that they had to get ready for the party.

"Don't you even want some dessert?" Rita's aunt called after her. "I made an eggnog custard . . ."

"That sounds great," Brian said, getting up. "Can I help clear the table?"

"Oh, no, sit down." Rita's aunt got up herself, but Brian didn't sit down. He picked up some plates and took them into the kitchen. Rita's aunt's nose wrinkled, but then she smiled and said, "Well, thank you," and followed him.

"Listen," Rita's uncle said to her quickly, "whatever you do out in Vancouver is your business, but you will not do anything like that under this roof. You will not bring any of your pervert friends home in the future. Do you understand?"

Her good humor vanished in a moment. She was five again, being scolded by her father for breaking a window or saying the wrong thing or not doing well enough at school. "Yes, sir," she said sulkily.

"Good."

Brian came back in the room, but if he noticed Rita's changed demeanor. In fact, he didn't say anything . . . at least not to her. "May I take your plate, sir?" he asked Rita's uncle.

"Of course, thank you." The older male leaned back and then tapped Rita's shoulder. "Help your aunt clean up."

Rita stood without a word and carried her own plate into the kitchen, then came back and picked up her wine glass and brought that in as well. She continued carrying one thing at a time until Brian had cleared everything else from the table, then she returned to her chair, playing with her napkin and listening to her aunt's protests from the kitchen. "Oh, Brian, you don't need to help. Go sit down. Well, okay, here, you can dry. How's that?"

Brian responded with some muffled words about how good the meal has been that Rita barely caught over the running water. Her uncle finished his wine, poured another glass, and said, "So, how are your studies going?"

"Fine," Rita said, curling her tail under her chair.

"Exams all go okay?"

"Yeah."

Her uncle took a drink of wine. "What are you taking next term?"

"Oh, I don't know. History of Urbanization, Linguistics 101, that kind of thing."

"Did you look into that Legal Studies course? David Miller knows the guy who's teaching it, says he's really good."

"Uncle Hal, I don't want to go to law school."

"You don't have to go to law school. I'm just saying, keep your horizons open. Don't just do this sociology thing because it's easy."

"I'll look at the class."

"That's all I'm asking. Have you heard from your cousin lately?"

"Yeah, he's having a great time over in Amsterdam."

"He's also learning a lot. That's a great experience. Does UBC have a semester abroad program? I don't know if you could get into it every year, like he has . . ."

"I dunno."

"Maybe Richie would know. You can ask when we call him tomorrow."

Fortunately, Rita was spared from prolonging the agonized conversation by the arrival of dessert. She found her aunt's eggnog custard far too sweet. She didn't like eggnog in general, but this time she was glad to see it. She took the overlarge portion she dished out and choked it down while Brian ate enthusiastically. "Really good, Ms. Landow," he said. Rita's aunt flicked her tail and beamed.

"What sort of food are you used to having?" she asked. "If you like, I could try to add a side dish to dinner tomorrow."

"Oh, I don't mind," he said. "This is all delicious."

"It's no trouble," she insisted, making Rita wonder whether she was going out of her way to be nice to Brian just to annoy her. "If there's something you'd like?" When Brian hesitated, she pressed. "There is. Go ahead, tell me!"

He smiled and lowered his ears, one of those adorable self-conscious gestures that had first attracted Rita to him. "Well . . . my mom made really good mochos. You know what those are?"

"Of course!" Rita's aunt smiled. "I'm sure I have a recipe around. I'll add that to my list when I go to the store tomorrow."

"My aunt has a good mocho recipe," Rita's uncle said.

"I'm sure she does, Hal." Peggy turned to Brian. "Do you know your mom's recipe?"

"Not precisely," Brian said, looking at the older male, who had shrugged and was taking another drink of wine. "But I could guess at it."

"That would be delightful. Why don't you come to the store with me?"

"Aunt Peggy!" Rita protested. "I was gonna show him around town tomorrow."

"Well, you come along too," she said. "The store's in town."

Brian turned to Rita. His smile was genuine. "I'd like to go."

It felt as though everyone were conspiring against her. "Fine," she said, slouching down in her chair, ears flat against her head. She played with her fork and plate until her uncle reached out and took the fork from her paw, placing it on the table without a word.

Brian had to help clean up, of course, so Rita went alone upstairs to her room and met her cousin and Mark on their way down. She contrived to rub her rump against Mark as she passed him on the stairs and that made her feel a little better.

Gillian stopped after she'd passed Rita and said, "Mark, go on and wait for me out back. I just want to talk to Rita."

"Sure." The wolf shrugged and disappeared around the bottom of the staircase.

"What's up?" Rita said.

"Listen," Gillian said. "I don't care who you bring home or if you're a binge eater, but stay away from my boyfriend, okay?"

"Hey, I'm just having a bit of fun."

"I know exactly what you're trying to do." Gillian then smirked. "And you might as well not bother anyway. After this Christmas, you'll be the only kid they have left and you'll never get out of coming back."

"What's that supposed to mean? Hey!" Gillian had given her a saucy wave and skipped on down the stairs, flouncing her hair in the annoying way she did when she was particularly smug about something.

Rita stared after her. She'd brought home a boyfriend and her mother and uncle appeared to like him. If they hadn't kicked her out by now, there wasn't much else she could do.

Her words stayed with Rita, though. If they kicked Gillian out and Richie continued to remain abroad, she really would be their last kid and, heterosexual or not, they'd want her at home. Her uncle hadn't said anything about her being kicked out, just that he couldn't bring her boyfriends home. Though her aunt appeared to like Brian so much, she thought she might want to sleep with her.

That thought irked her so much that her fur bristled up. She took off her shirt to brush herself down. She hadn't brought her favorite brush from school, but her second favorite had stayed at home. She ran it through her fur in slow, gentle strokes, feeling herself calm down as she did.

Brian came back into the room, glanced at her, and picked up his bag.

"Hey," Rita said, "if you finish brushing me, I'll do you."

The dog stared at her, then put the bag down. "You sure you wouldn't rather go run after that guy?"

"Oh, come on," Rita said. "I was just havin' some fun! Why is everyone all bent out of shape about it?"

"Well, you told me you told your family about us and you didn't. Then you spend all dinner flirting with your cousin's boyfriend. I'm sorry, but that's not how my family celebrates Christmas." Brian seemed almost to be on the verge of tears.

Rita crossed the room and took his paws. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just stressful for me, being home. I know Mark from way back. He used to bully me, back in middle school, then he ignored me through high school. He was one of the jocks, the cool guys. I was just a dirty fox. So I just wanted to make fun of him, toss out all those words that he wouldn't understand and laugh at him. Did you see his expression when I offered to toss his salad?"

"Still," Brian said, but the corners of his mouth were crinkling upward.

"It was like this." Rita put on her best "duh" expression and tilted her ears all askew.

Brian giggled. "Stop it." He half-heartedly pushed Rita away.

Rita held on. "You see what I mean? It was just harmless fun."

"Well, don't do it again, okay?"

Rita held a paw to her heart. "Promise."

Brian nodded and turned his muzzle back toward Rita, who leaned in for a kiss. She was already getting aroused just from being so close to Brian. When she got her kiss, her heart jumped nicely to attention. She rubbed a paw into Brian's leg, but the dog pulled back. "Rita . . ., not now."

Rita growled in frustration, then grinned. "Yeah, you're right. Tell you what . . . sneak up here tonight after midnight. My aunt and uncle are always asleep by then."

"I don't want to cause more trouble . . ."

"Just be careful going past their room. The floorboards right outside their door squeak; they leave them that way intentionally. Come 'ere." She led her boyfriend outside and pointed to the hallway rug. "They'll leave a night light on in the hall. If you jump over that flower pattern there, you'll be fine." She demonstrated.

"All right." Brian heaved his bag over his shoulder. "I'll go get the bed set up and then I'll come back up to hang out for a bit."

They relaxed together on Rita's bed listening to music (Rita said she didn't have any Christmas music, when Brian asked) until her uncle came up to tell them he was going to bed. He knocked on the door even though it was ajar, and coughed to announce himself. Rita said, "Yeah, come in," and resisted the urge to say, "We're not doing anything."

"You guys go ahead and stay up if you want, but your aunt's going to make breakfast around eight, so if you want some, be up by then."

"Okay. Thanks, Uncle Hal," Rita said.

Brian chimed in with thanks as well.

They heard Rita's aunt and uncle close the door to their room and then Brian grinned at Rita and kissed her on the nose. "I'll head down to sleep too. I'll come back in an hour and a half." He brushed Rita's stomach through her shirt.

Rita was horny again at the thought, almost immediately. She kissed Brian back and thumped her tail against the bed. "I'll be right here."

She had intended to take a nap, but after Brian left, her feelings of arousal didn't go down no matter how much she tried to think of other things. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling and made it twenty minutes before starting to fondle herself. At eleven-thirty, she had to stop or she was going to jerk herself all the way off, so she turned over on her stomach and ground her hips ineffectually into the soft sheets.

At eleven-forty-five, she heard her cousin and Mark come home and heard her aunt talking to them. She'd forgotten Peggy would wait up for them. She cursed her cousin for staying out so late. Brian would never come up if he saw Rita's aunt waiting there. Fortunately, she followed Gillian upstairs and went to bed at the same time.

Hopefully, Rita thought, she would be tired enough that she would fall asleep quickly. By twelve-fifteen, she was so horny she didn't care whether her aunt and uncle heard them or not. She flipped back over onto her back, sliding her paw along her furry vanilla belly in preparation for Brian walking through the door, imagining all the things they would do. Brian's muzzle on her, her tail up as Brian mounted her, or maybe Brian would be in the mood to be mounted. She could bury her face in his warm, furry butt . . .

Twelve-thirty came and went.

"Come on, Brian," Rita muttered.

At twelve-forty, she decided that Brian must have fallen asleep. She slid out of bed, trying to drive out the perverted thoughts that captivated her mind, but with very little success. An old terrycloth robe hung on the back of the door to her room. Fortunately, she found that it still fit.

She crept past Gillian's room and was just about to jump the flower pattern when a hiss startled her. Spinning as quietly as she could, she saw Gillian peering out through the slightly open door of her room. "Psst," she said again.

"What? You'll wake up Uncle Hal and Aunt Peggy."

"Nah, Mom had a glass of vodka before going to bed. She'll be out cold. Listen, are you going downstairs to get together with Brian?"

"Yeah."

"Could you tell Mark to come up, too? I think he fell asleep."

Her first reaction was to say no, but she was too slow; Gillian disappeared back into her room, leaving the door ajar. I'm not your errand girl, she thought, but then it occurred to her that if Mark came upstairs, she and Brian could do whatever they wanted in the rec room. She slipped back to her room to grab the lubricant she'd packed and then skirted her aunt's room without a sound and walked down the stairs to keep her claws from clicking on the wood.

Through the living room, she went into the rec room by the light of the Christmas trees, bright as day to her eyes. Of course her aunt left the trees on twenty-four-seven once it got this close to the holidays, but the Christmas music in the rec room was probably Brian's doing. It had been left at a low pitch, but Rita's ears caught the strains of "Here Comes Santa Clause" as she walked through the doorway.

She had no trouble seeing Brian on the air mattress on the other side of the rec room tree, which she saw was festooned with all her and his family's favorite ornaments from years past. The dog appeared to be sound asleep, not even sitting up waiting for her, or waiting for the coast to be clear. Rita felt a twinge of annoyance. Wasn't Brian as horny as she was? Well, she'd wake up Mark and get rid of him and then they'd have a nice and naughty Christmas cuddle by the tree.

The wolf was sleeping on the couch, an old comfortable blanket soaked with the scents of Rita and her brother from countless hours of watching TV, playing games, listening to stories, and just hanging out. Rita was amused that the wolf had chosen to sleep there. He must have been in love with her cousin's scent or something, or else he didn't care about smell and thought the couch was more comfortable than the air mattress that lay unused on the floor.

Rita walked quietly up to Mark and put a paw on his shoulder, shaking him gently. Turned away from him, the wolf didn't stir. "Hey," she whispered, shaking him a little harder.

Mark's large form stirred; his paw twitched and fell off the couch, hanging down to the floor. He turned over onto his back and opened his eyes. Rita could see the reflections of the Christmas lights in them. The sight was so unexpectedly pretty that she hesitated for a moment before saying anything.

A large paw grabbed the front of her robe and pulled her down. Rita barely had time to register a moment of panic before there was a tongue in her mouth and the taste of teenager and beer pounded her senses. The initial rush of panic made her struggle, but the paw's grip was unbreakable. She found herself responding to the kiss, sliding her tongue against the other and pushing her lips further against the larger, broader lips.

And then another paw brushed her leg under the hem of her robe and moved up, nails teasing the inside of her thigh, making her soft moans reverberate in the wolf's mouth. The small part of her mind that was coherent enough to wonder if this was really happening was drowned out by the surging song of her hormones. She waited, trembling, for the paw to reach her sash. When it did it slipped up underneath it as though it wasn't even there, claws moving through her fur all the way up to her chest, shifting for a better angle. His fingers cupped her fur before the soft paws moved down her warm chest to grip her moistened vagina.

Her first thought, that the sleepy, drunk teenager had mistaken her for her cousin, was clearly wrong, because the paw started to pump her, showing no signs of alarm at all. She shuddered at the paw's firm strokes, up and down. She moaned again. While the paw remained firm in her, the other abruptly let go of her robe.

The kiss broke in an instant. Rita found herself gulping for breath inches from the bright eyes, dancing with Christmas lights and other, more primal gleams. Slowly, the long pink tongue that had just been licking the inside of her mouth curved around from one side of Mark's lips to the other.

The paw that had held her robe found Rita's paw and pulled it down to the muscular chest, covered with only a thin T-shirt. When a mesmerized Rita placed her paw on the T-shirt and Mark saw the bottle of lubricant, his eyes widened slightly, then his face spread into a wider grin. He got up from the couch without pulling his paw out of Rita's vagina and led the fox out of the rec room and into the living room, through the kitchen, and to the back porch.

"W-wait," Rita said finally as he closed the screen door gently behind him. The night was cool, but not cold. She was burning inside anyway, her legs shaking from the heat of the paw shoved up her clit.

Mark turned to look at her, a little annoyed. Rita could see his breath, barely, a wisp of white in the cold air. "What?"

"You're . . ." The words dissipated before she could even form them. Her wit, her facility with words, all deserted her.

The wolf squeezed her vulva, rubbing a thumb inside the sensitive area, making Rita gasp. "Yeah?"

"I . . . but . . ."

Mark finally removed his paw. "Why did you wake me up?"

Rita looked longingly at the paw, wanting nothing more than to have it back inside her again. She looked at the broad chest and thoughts of Brian evaporated as quickly as her breath vanished in the air. "To . . . tell you to go upstairs . . ."

The wolf grinned at her. "This is more private." He reached over and undid the front of Rita's robe. "So what's the problem? Come on, you were flirting all through dinner. You said you're a bat girl. Well, I've got a nice bat for you."

Rita's gaze shifted to the bulge underneath Mark's shirt and she smiled. She reached out and brushed the back of her paw up it. "You sure do," she said. The length was big and hard. As she kept rubbing her paw along it, she felt the dampness at the tip even through the shirt.

"And you came prepared, didn't you?" Mark was looking at the bottle of lubricant.

Rita had forgotten about it; now she grinned. "Yeah."

"You think you can take this big bat?"

Rita pulled the shirt off, exposing the wolf's erection. It looked dark in the moonlight and felt hot as the wolf gripped it in her paw, pulsing with warm life. She met the taller wolf's eyes and gave him her best smirk. "Oh, I can take it." Even if she couldn't, she was so desperate for it now that she would've said the line anyway.

Mark reached out and pushed the robe off her shoulders. Rita let it fall to the ground, then stood naked on the aging wood of her back porch. She sucked in her stomach, basking in the wolf's scrutiny and watching his expression. Slowly, she let her tail wag back and forth as she reached out for the dark, tempting shaft again.

As she grasped it, the black paw enveloped her vulva again, sliding up in an expertly firm stroke. Before she knew it, they were kissing again, mouths locked together in a hot embrace as their paws pumped up and down, the kind of moment Rita had often read about and never shared, hot and passionate and apart from the rest of the world, existing only for them. The taste of wolf overwhelmed her, the hot arousal was silky smooth against her paw. The deliciously cool breeze ruffled her fur.

Mark's paw was soft and before she knew it, Rita was gasping and moaning into the other's mouth. The wolf stopped and stepped back, grinning. "You ready now?"

"God, yes," Rita panted and dropped to all fours, her paws spread out on the old wooden boards of the porch. In the moonlight, she could see the grain of the wood, the places where the boards had buckled against each other. She remembered sitting on the porch with her brother and cousin, playing cards on days when it was too hot to go out into the sun, her aunt bringing cactus juice out to them. She grinned fiercely at the memories, thinking that she was just playing a different kind of game now, with a different kind of friend.

She heard the soft squirt of the lubricant bottle. Her heart jumped in response. I'm so conditioned, she thought, closing her eyes, her whole body thrumming with desire. She arched her tail, signaling her readiness, even though she realized that was something she did with Brian (and had done with Nathan, previously), but Mark did not know.

It was apparently a universal signal. When the touch came, under her tail, she shivered and raised her head, looking at the wicker furniture and the small, low table she'd grown up with. Did she ever imagine she'd be staring at it on her paws and knees while getting it from Mark Winter on Christmas Eve? She moaned as the fingers teased her rear end, spreading the cool slickness around the hole, then closed her eyes as thick fingers pushed inside her.

They worked her rear for only a brief time before sliding out, quickly replaced by what she'd been longing for. The hardened penis probed and then pushed, thrusting deeply into her as the wolf's body engulfed her from above, arms circling her chest, legs pressed up against hers, stomach trapping her tail against her back. She whined at the thick length. Mark nipped her ear. "You okay?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Rita panted.

"Okay. Keep quiet then, or I'll have to keep you quiet." A paw reached up and held her muzzle shut, then released it. Rita growl and laughed and then had to clamp her mouth shut herself as Mark's other paw, the one with the lubricant still dripping from it, found her moistened vagina and gave it a couple quick strokes. The wolf's hips slid out and then back and Rita muffled a squeak.

Mark nipped her ear again. "This isn't gonna take long," he said, pulling back for another thrust. This time he held onto Rita's ear as he pushed deeply back in.

"Uh-uh," Rita panted, feeling the wolf slide in and out of her faster and faster, the large knot already stretching her as it slid in and out. As it swelled further, Rita felt more resistance getting it inside her. A couple of thrusts later, Mark stopped pushing it in at all, just sinking the rest of his length into Rita and pulling back out. He might not know how to tie a tie properly, Rita thought, to the extent that she could still think with that back and forth motion under her tail and the paw pumping her.

She felt the surge of pleasure all at once, clenching in her midsection and then exploding from her in waves. Behind her, the wolf's thrusts mirrored her shudders as the larger teenager held her tightly and emptied himself into Rita's rear, growling and panting into the fox's large ear.

"Mmmm!" Rita moaned through clenched teeth as the familiar smell of her own musk rose steaming through the chill night to her nose.

"Uhh . . . uhh . . ." Mark panted. "Oh, man." He gulped. Rita felt the long exhalation of breath across her ear. "You smell pretty good, you know?"

"Thanks," she said inanely, her head still spinning from her climax.

Mark slid back and out of her and Rita found herself pressing back to try to keep the wolf inside her, unused to being vacated so quickly after a climax. Brian liked to tie with her, and so had Nathan. She liked the ten or fifteen minutes of quiet afterwards. The wolf, though, was already standing and putting his shirt back on. "Thanks," he said, waving a paw and yawning. "Night."

"Night." Rita waved and watched Mark stand with the screen door open, looking back as the wolf admired (she felt) her naked body. The wolf was pretty handsome himself. Rita couldn't believe she'd missed the signs that he was interested in her in her rush to make a fool of him. Her radar had been seriously out of whack, or maybe just out of practice since she'd been dating Brian. And really, she'd always expected athletes to be heterosexual, or maybe she'd hoped they would be. She was just surprised when it turned out that way.

Mark gave her one last look, a smile, then went into the kitchen, tail swaying behind him as he eased the door closed.

Rita sat back on her haunches and looked at the mess on the porch. She was sleepy now and certainly didn't feel like cleaning it up. If her aunt and uncle found it, they'd know what she'd done. So she would leave it there. They couldn't mistake the smell. She grinned down at the stain and pulled her robe on.

By the time she got upstairs, she was in pretty dire need of the bathroom. She was halfway inside, fingers poised over the light switch, when she heard a "Psst!" from across the hall. It wasn't until that very moment that she remembered Gillian. It occurred to her that she'd just had sex with her boyfriend. "What?" she hissed back.

Gillian motioned for her to come into her room, but Rita shook her head, turned on the light, and started to close the bathroom door. "Gillian!" she whispered as Gillian jumped across the hall and into the bathroom.

Gillian pushed the door closed. "Just tell me if he's coming up. I'm tired."

"No." Rita backed away from her, looking for something to cover her scent. "I, uh, couldn't get him up . . ." She coughed to cover her laugh at her own words.

"You mean you got distracted with your butt pirate," Gillian said, sniffing. "Is that K-Y? Honestly, Rita, you . . ." Her nose wrinkled.

Rita tried to back away more. "Yeah, sorry. Look, just go ahead on down and . . ."

"That's him!" Gillians's eyebrows shot straight up and her nostrils flared. "You rat! You total scumbag! You couldn't stand that I have a cuter boyfriend, so you went and slept with him!"

"Hey! Brian's plenty cute."

"Then why didn't you sleep with him? Huh? You are such a slut, Rita." She shoved her in the chest, hard, and she almost fell backwards over the toilet.

"Jeez, Gillian, calm down." Rita's heart was pounding now, because she realized that she didn't really know this young lady whose eyes were blazing, whose hair was bristled out, who looked about ready to clench a fist and pop her one.

"Don't tell me to calm down," Gillian said. "I told you to stay away from him, but you couldn't listen, could you? You always have to be the best one, always have to have the last word. Well, fine, you can have the last word, because you're gonna be the last one here." She looked on the verge of tears.

Rita reached out and said, "Hey, Gillian . . ."

"Piss off," Gillian snarled and slammed the bathroom door closed on her way out.

Rita stared at it for only a moment before locking it. While she was taking care of her need, she heard a light knocking at the door. "Rita? Gillian? Is everything okay?" Her aunt sounded not at all sleepy.

"Fine," Rita said. "Sorry, the door slipped."

"Oh, okay. Sleep well, dear."

"Thanks. I sure will."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When Rita finally woke up the next morning, the sun was in her eyes and her clock read eighteen minutes past nine o' clock. The smell of pancakes filled the air, but it was an old smell. As she yawned and stretched, she resigned herself to a breakfast of cold cereal, which wasn't all that bad, except that they probably didn't have her favorites anymore. She stretched, luxuriating in the warmth of the morning and the happy afterglow of getting her ashes hauled. The imprint of the wolf in her rear had faded, making her regret that they hadn't tied, because she would feel that longer.

Thoughts of Brian and her cousin crossed her mind, but she didn't worry about them too much. Brian didn't have to know. Her cousin could take care of herself. She lay in bed, grinning, thinking about the night, rubbing a paw up and down her stomach and hips. This had turned out to be a pretty good trip home after all. She couldn't wait to see if she ran into some of her friends downtown, so she could tell them about what she and Mark Winter had done the previous night.

Of course, she thought, getting up finally, she couldn't tell them in front of Brian, because Brian would want to know how she could be so sure. Rita wasn't about to screw up what she had going with Brian just to notch herself one up on Winter. And come to think of it, she didn't really need to do anything like that outside the house anyway.

And she didn't really have any friends she was looking forward to seeing.

It had been a nice idea while it lasted, though.

She showered, dried her fur off, and walked downstairs in loose strides and a black shirt.

Nobody was in the living room or the rec room. She poked her muzzle into the kitchen and smelled the pancakes, more strongly. Following the scent to the oven, she found a small plate inside, still warm, and assumed it was hers, since everyone else appeared to be gone. The syrup and butter were in the usual place, and so, when she got out to the dining room, was her uncle.

"Morning," the older member grunted, engrossed in his newspaper.

"Hi," Rita said, tucking into the pancakes with gusto. She had gotten halfway through her pancakes before her uncle said anything else.

"You have a nice shirt and slacks?"

"Mm-mmm," Rita said around a mouthful. "I didn't bring any. Maybe in the closet."

"You'll dress up nice tonight for the party. And then your aunt wants to go to church tonight."

Rita swallowed. "I don't want to go to the Andersons' party. I thought maybe Brian and I would just stay home."

"You will. We're having the party here."

"But, Uncle Hal . . ."

Her uncle picked up the paper and started reading again. "I don't ask much of you anymore. All I want is for us to show up at this party as a family."

"Some family," Rita muttered under her breath. Fortunately, her uncle pretended not to have heard, though she saw the older fox's eyes twitch and knew he had. "Where is Brian, anyway? And Aunt Peggy?"

"They went out shopping."

"Oh." Rita finished her pancakes in silence and got up. She heard the rustling of the newspaper behind her.

"If you want to be helpful, you could get out the vacuum and sweep the living room and rec room. There're needles all over the floor again."

"You shouldn't have real trees anyway," Rita retorted from the doorway. "Why kill a tree when you could have a nice-looking fake one?"

"Those trees are raised to be Christmas trees. If we didn't buy them, someone else would, or else they'd be chopped up at the end of the season. So why shouldn't we enjoy them?"

"Yeah, but by buying them, you're creating a market that encourages more people to harvest them."

Her uncle looked at her with a piercing glare. "Don't talk back. Just vacuum the floor."

"I'm on vacation," Rita turned to go into the kitchen.

"So is your friend. but he was pitching in this morning before you were even up."

"Well, he likes shopping; I don't."

"He was cleaning, too. Scrubbed down the back porch. It looks great. I was thinking of serving drinks out there."

So Brian had probably seen the stain on the porch. Rita sighed, feeling a flush of embarrassment and shame. She'd have some talking to do when he got home. But the idea of having drinks out on the porch, and standing on the spot where she'd gotten a nice humping, appealed to her. "I think that's a great idea. Where are Gillian and Mark?"

"Gillian went out shopping, too."

"What about Mark?"

Either her uncle hadn't heard her or was ignoring her. She rinsed her dishes and left them in the sink, then went to stick her nose in the rec room.

The couch and air mattress were both empty, but if she put her nose down to the couch, she could smell the wolf through the thick scents of her and her siblings. Mark must have gone out somewhere else. He had family in the area, too, so he likely wouldn't stick around for the whole holiday. Rita grinned to herself. Better that way. Why taint a nice meaningless encounter with awkward after-sex conversation?

She ran the vacuum lackadaisically around the living room and rec room, then retreated upstairs to check in with her online friends, who all seemed to be having a great deal more fun than she was. She lamented being stuck in the middle of nowhere, got a couple of offers to spend next year's holidays, and told one of her closest friends what had happened the previous night. They discussed how she should handle it with Brian, then moved on to talk about the latest download by their favorite band, leaving Rita in a considerably better mood by the time she heard activity downstairs.

Her ears caught female voices and Brian's light male voice. Brian would come upstairs, she knew, because he would want to talk about what had gone on the previous night. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Rita's door creaked open.

"Hey," Brian said.

"Nice shopping?" Rita asked.

"Yeah!" Brian shut the door and went to sit on the bed. "We got the stuff for the mocho and your aunt's gonna let me help make it. You have a cool family."

Rita shrugged. "If you don't have to live with 'em."

Brian's tail had been wagging against the bed, then it slowed and stopped and his ears went down. "So . . . I, uh, I'm sorry I didn't come up last night. I was just real tired and I fell asleep."

This took Rita by surprise. "Oh, that's okay . . ."

Brian didn't respond, but he was looking down and his ears remained down.

Rita took the initiative. "I heard you cleaned up the porch."

"Yeah." He sighed. "I went out there in the morning just to get some fresh air and . . . it looked like it needed some cleaning."

"Listen, I went downstairs to find you and Mark was awake . . . well, I woke him up to tell him to come upstairs to my cousin's room. He just grabbed me . . . it all happened really fast."

Miraculously, Brian appeared satisfied with this explanation. "I guess it's partly my fault. If I'd come upstairs when I said I would, it wouldn't have happened."

"Well, yeah." Rita then added magnanimously, "But I could have woken you up first. He was just nearer the door. I really didn't expect it to happen."

"So did he, uh . . ." Brian looked down at the floor. "I guess I don't need to know. He's a teenager, so you can't catch anything from him. All right. I won't think about it again. But you should have cleaned up. What if your aunt and uncle had found it first?"

"Yeah." Rita nodded, thinking, That's what I wanted, but only said, "I was just so tired."

"Must have been going around." Brian gave her a hesitant smile. "Oh, your aunt has a surprise for you."

Rita rolled her eyes. "Did she get pistachio ice cream again?"

"No, no. I won't tell you what it is." Brian reached out and took Rita's paw.

Rita got up slowly. "I hate surprises."

"It's nothing bad, I promise," Brian said.

"You don't know my aunt." She followed her boyfriend into the hall and down the stairs. Rounding the bottom of the stairs, she could hear her aunt in the kitchen, talking to someone she assumed was her cousin until she caught the scent in the air. "Oh, no." She stopped and groaned. "She brought home Alice."

Brian paused. "Yeah. She's really nice. Your aunt said you were friends."

"Were. We dated in tenth grade. She's my ex-girlfriend."

"So, that's nice. You must have been really close. Was it a bad breakup?"

"No, not really." Rita kept her voice down. "We broke up because I decided I liked boys."

The boy she currently liked wagged his tail. "Good! So there's no problem."

"Don't you see what my aunt is doing?"

Brian looked back at the kitchen and then at Rita. "Um . . . trying to fill her house with friends on Christmas?"

"She's trying to get me and Alice back together, to get me to go back to her."

"Huh? No." Brian waved a paw. "She just . . . we ran into Alice completely by accident."

"I'm sure. She didn't make any calls on her cell phone before you left? Or while you were shopping?"

Now Brian looked less sure. "Well . . . she might have. Gillian and I had our own list to shop for."

"There you go." Rita shook her head. "I guess Alice probably doesn't have much interest in getting back together, at least." She headed for the kitchen, but now it was Brian who hesitated.

"Oh . . . she did say something about . . ."

"Oh, no. What?"

"About . . . missing the old days . . . I thought it was just, you know, friendship, I didn't know. I'm sorry, Rita."

Rita shook her head. "Might as well let her down gently." She squared her shoulders, curled her tail down against one leg, and marched into the kitchen. On her way there, she passed Gillian.

Gillian was walking quickly with her head held high and a very satisfied smirk on her face. "Have fun," she said to Rita, flicking her hair as she passed the red fox and marched up the stairs.

Brian stared after her. "What do you think she did?"

"I don't know," Rita said, "but I bet my aunt's in the liquor cabinet now."

Peggy wasn't, not quite, but her eyes kept flicking over towards it. Rita figured the only reason she wasn't going there immediately was because of the other female in the kitchen. Alice was much as she remembered her, a brown-headed girl with glasses and slightly matted hair that wasn't particularly remarkable. She'd gone out with her more for her shared love of books and words than for her looks or for the frankly unmemorable sex. They liked the same books at first, until she got into romance novels. When she discovered that they shared more taste in men than books, she'd called it quits.

Alice was holding a knife, hovering over a cutting board where a garlic clove had been half-chopped. When Rita came in, she gave the red fox a quick look and a strange smile, a distracted greeting. Rita's aunt barely seemed to see her at all.

"Aunt Peggy?" Rita walked over to her. "What did Gillian say?"

"I always wanted to have one, of course, but this is so sudden . . ." Peggy was , continuing some conversation she'd been having with Alice, looking at Alice and or the vodka bottle.

Rita looked at Alice. She glanced from her aunt to her. "A grandchild. Your cousin just announced that she's, um, expecting."

"She's pregnant?" Man, she thought. I can't top that one.

"I'm going to be a grandmother," her aunt said.

"Who's the father?" Rita asked.

"Oh, my, I didn't even ask," her aunt said faintly. "It must be Mark, or else . . . well . . ."

"Wasn't she dating that Jake guy for a few months?"

"Who's Mark?" Alice asked.

"You know him," Rita said. "Mark Winter."

"The wolf? So it'd be a . . ."

Mixed race cub, Rita thought She hadn't paid much attention in health class, but now she remembered some lecture from Mrs. Cartwright about how most mixed-species pairings couldn't have kids ("without issues," she added), but canines could, some of them. All the foxes could interbreed. Coyotes and wolves could too. There weren't any coyotes or wolves in their school, so she'd forgotten the lecture as soon as it happened. The wolves stayed with the wolves and the coyotes stayed with the coyotes. Why would anyone have a mixed-race cub anyway, when they wouldn't belong to either group? Unless that person was deliberately trying to piss off her family. But that was crazy. She wouldn't get pregnant just for that. would she?

Her aunt had put a paw to her muzzle at the mention of Mark's species and was now drifting towards the dining room. Rita figured her aunt would let her go get her drink and let Alice down at the same time. "Good to see you again," she said to Alice, urging her out into the foyer. "Come 'ere, there's someone I want you to meet."

"It's really good to see you too," Alice said, following Rita out to the base of the stairs. "I guess I showed up at the wrong time, huh?"

"This is Brian," Rita said. "Brian, this is Alice." As they were shaking hands, she said, "Brian is my boyfriend."

"Oh, that's sweet," Alice said. "How cute."

"We've been going out for three months now." She took Brian's paw and held it. Brian squeezed her paw back after a moment.

"That's just darling," Alice said, not looking at Brian at all. She reached out and touched his arm, the one that wasn't next to his girlfriend. "Wow, you've been working out."

"Just a little," Brian replied.

"So how did you end up coming back with my aunt?" Rita demanded.

"She'd already invited me for the party," Alice said. "I happened to be at the grocery store this morning and ran into her and she asked if I'd come along."

"She didn't call you?"

Alice looked away and grinned. "I'm a terrible liar. Yeah, she called me. She asked me not to tell you."

"Told you," Rita said to Brian, gesturing to Alice. "She wants us to get back together."

"Well, yeah," Alice said. "She only mentions it every time she sees me."

"I'm sorry," Rita said sincerely.

"Don't worry about it. I like your aunt. I like your whole family."

"Me too," Brian put in.

Rita rolled her eyes. "Great. You two can go help with dinner." She looked at the stairs. "I'm going to go find out what's going on with Gillian." She added to the puzzled-looking Brian, "She's pregnant."

Brian's mouth dropped open. "Pregnant?" he asked Alice as they walked back to the kitchen."

She mounted the stairs slowly, pushing open the door to Gillian's room. She leaned against the doorframe.

Gillian was placing clothes in a suitcase. "I'm sure I won't be able to come to the party tonight once Dad hears the news. Give my best to the Andersons."

"Are you really pregnant, or did you just say you are?"

Gillian grinned. "Oh, Rita, I wouldn't lie about something like that." She threw another sweater into her bag.

Rita leaned against the doorframe. "Who's the father?"

Gillian's eyes flashed darkly at her. "It was going to be Mark until you ruined that last night. Maybe I don't need a father."

"You're not immaculate."

"Thanks for the reminder, Ms. Pure and Clean. Don't you have something to stick in your muzzle other than my business?"

"Hey, I'm just curious. I mean, you are my cousin."

"Oh, you remember that, do you, since last night, I mean?" She'd filled her bag now. She zipped it closed.

"Look, it's not like that meant anything." Rita shook her head. "Anyway, I didn't start it."

"Oh, can it, slut. I heard you at dinner. Just because Mom and Dad don't know flirting when they hear it doesn't mean I don't."

"Fine, whatever." If Gillian was going to blame her harmless teasing for her boyfriend being attracted to her, she wouldn't be able to argue with that. "Where are you going?"

"Going to Mark's for the night. After that, I don't know."

"Don't be so sure about that. Uncle Hal was pretty insistent about me going to this party. And you're not showing enough to embarrass him yet."

"That's why I'm leaving now." Gillian lifted the bag and walked toward Rita. "If you'll get out of my way, that is."

Rita stepped aside and waved her graciously into the hallway. "Be my guest."

"Thank you."

Watching her flounce down the stairs, Rita thought, well, this is certainly the most eventful Christmas I can remember.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gillian made it only as far as the bottom of the stairs before her tearful mother, lubricated now with whatever her current poison was, accosted her and made her drop the bag, grabbing her arm and pulling her through the living room into the rec room.

Rita got to the bottom of the stairs in time to see her uncle in one of the leather chairs turning away from the TV before her aunt pulled the door closed. She walked quietly over and put her ear to the door, but they were talking low and the TV was on. She couldn't hear anything clearly, so after a while she gave up.

She wandered into the kitchen, where Brian and Alice were looking over some of the recipes her aunt had out.

"We should get this started pretty soon if it's going to be ready," Alice said.

Brian's ears were half-down. "My mother would kill me if I tried to cook Christmas dinner for her."

"Oh, I've cooked with Peggy before," Alice said. "I'm sure she won't mind. Right, Rita?"

"Sure," she said. Brian gave her a strange look, her ears lowered still further. "Really, it's fine. It's not like she's that great a cook."

"This doesn't look too hard." Alice ignored Rita while Brian looked shocked at her bold statement. "Just a lot of veggies to chop."

"I'll help with the chopping," Rita said. "I'm hopeless at anything else."

"You're good at chopping, though," Brian said. "You're a great kitchen assistant."

"I remember," Alice said thoughtfully, "the time we made a cherry pie. Remember? Eighth grade?"

"Yeah, we got in trouble because we didn't clean up the kitchen," Rita said.

"I thought the apple pie we made for Thanksgiving turned out really well," Brian said, handing Rita a bell pepper and a knife. "Here, chop this like you would for a salad."

"Actually," Alice said, handing Rita a larger knife, "I find this works better for peppers."

Rita held both knives and then put the larger one down. "This one will be fine, thanks."

For whatever reason, Alice's eyebrows went down and Brian wagged his tail to brush Rita's leg. Rita focused on chopping the pepper, because if she didn't it was likely that she'd nick one of her pads.

"Let's see," Alice said. "The only thing besides the veggies for the stuffing is measuring out the herbs. Brian, you can do that. I'll cook the sweet potatoes."

"I was going to start the dough for the mocho," he said. "It has to sit for a couple hours."

"I've made bread with my mother for years," Alice said. "I can make the dough and then you can do whatever you need to do. The sweet potatoes need to stew for a while."

"I'll start on the dough while you do that," Brian said. His voice had gotten colder.

"Fine," Alice said. She busied herself with pots and pans, making enough of a clattering noise that further conversation ceased.

Brian got out a bowl himself, measured flour into it, then investigated the cupboards until he found some yeast. He added salt and sugar and then dropped the water and yeast into the middle of the bowl. Alice got her pots settled just as he began stirring and walked behind him over to the fridge. As she walked behind Rita, her paw slid along her rump.

"Ow!" Rita dropped the knife and brought her wounded finger to her muzzle, licking the pad.

"Oh, is it bad?" Brian grabbed her paw and inspected the wound.

Alice was there in a moment, too, pushing her muzzle in to see it. "Let me look," she said. "Oh, that's not too bad. Press a paper towel over it and it'll stop bleeding in a minute."

Brian shot a sharp look at her and brought the paw to his muzzle. "Let me make it better." He licked the pad.

Alice stared at him and then gave a small "hmph" and walked over to the fridge. She found the sweet potatoes and started chopping.

Brian smiled and nuzzled Rita's paw. "There. Be careful, now!"

"Thanks," Rita said, finishing the second pepper. "What else needs chopping?"

"How about some celery?" Alice handed her a stalk and pressed up to her side. "Just small pieces, you know. Like this." She took the knife, rubbed against her, and chopped twice off the end of the stalk.

"You know how to do celery, hon," Brian said, coming up on Rita's other side with the bowl in his arms.

"Okay," Alice said, "looks like you're set here, then." And Rita felt the odd sensation of both her hand and Brian's paw against Rita's legs.

"You know, really, I need a little more space to chop properly," Rita said, and with glares at each other, both lovers moved away from her. She shook her head, her fur almost prickling from the tense silence in the kitchen. She finished the first and second stalks of celery, by which time Brian had covered his dough with a towel and moved on to some other recipe. Alice took time out from cooking the sweet potatoes to make little suggestions as Brian went through the preparations for the next dish.

"It's so nice to be back here for Christmas," Alice said. "Just like the old days. I really miss that, don't you, Rita?"

"Uh . . ." Rita was working on her third celery stalk. She paused so she wouldn't cut herself again. "Actually, I kind of like Vancouver."

"Yeah," Brian chimed in. "In our neighborhood, they put up wreaths and lanterns all along the street and they light up all the trees. It's really pretty. And on Christmas Eve, we used to have carolers come up and down the street."

"And why aren't you at home this year?" Alice said.

"Because I'm here. With Rita." Brian put his arm around Rita's waist.

"That's sweet," Alice said again, turning back to her cooking.

Rita didn't usually mind being fought over, but this was getting annoying, not to mention the fact that she had to chop vegetables while listening to it. Her eye caught a flash of motion past the kitchen door, and she saw her cousin running upstairs. "Oh," she said, relieved, "there goes Gillian. I'd better go after her." Before either Brian or Alice could object, she'd scooted out of the kitchen and up the stairs, where she walked right past Gillian's open door and into her room. She opened a book and stayed there for the next two hours until her aunt called everyone down for dinner.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Peggy called it "dinner" even though they were eating at three in the afternoon. The menu varied little from year to year. Every year Peggy managed to overcook the store-cooked ham, the vegetables, and whatever else she tried to make. Occasionally one of the dishes turned out fine, usually the ones she'd had a lot of practice with, like green beans with almonds, or peas and carrots.

Gillian had appeared for dinner with a bland smile that gave no indication of how the afternoon's conversation had affected her, while Rita's uncle kept his mouth tightly shut and his eyes swiveled pointedly away from everyone else at the table, and Rita's aunt was smiling and swaying as she brought the dishes in from the kitchen. Rita sat next to Brian and Alice moved her place to sit on Rita's other side, but it was Brian's tail that Rita moved his to touch, not Alice's.

Her aunt said grace, only missing one of the words, and they started eating. This dinner started out traditionally, with Gillian saying, "Great ham, Mom," a comment which had acquired more and more sarcasm over the years. The ham was the first thing Rita tried, too. She grinned at Gillian as she made her comment. Same as ever.

The sweet potato, though, was really good. Rita heard other startled murmurs around the table. Alice, watching her reaction, smiled smugly. "Like that?"

"Yeah," she said, "it's really good."

"Try the mocho," Brian said, handing Rita a plate of the steaming rolls.

Rita took one and bit into it, onion and garlic flavors building on the fresh bready taste. "Wow!"

"Not as good as my mom made," Brian said, "but pretty good."

"The stuffing's really good," Gillian said, sounding surprised.

Rita's aunt was ecstatic. "Oh, thank you, thank you. My little helpers made it so easy."

"It was really fun," Brian said, beaming at her and then at Rita. "I helped with the glaze on the ham."

"There's glaze?" Gillian said.

"No, not glaze." Brian looked at Rita's aunt. "Gravy?"

"Sauce," Alice said.

"Oh, right." Brian nodded happily and pushed a bowl toward Gillian. "Sauce. Try it."

"Looks like you already have," Rita murmured.

Brian grinned bashfully at her and whispered, "Just a little."

"I bet," Rita snorted. "Alone in the kitchen with my aunt." She'd only ever seen Brian drunk once and it had been pretty funny. It had also led to some great oral sex and then a great humping the next morning. Just remembering that night and morning got her aroused. "More wine?"

Her uncle wasn't drinking wine, but just about everyone else at the table had a glass in front of them. The unexpectedly appetizing food called for more wine, and before the end of the meal, Rita's aunt had opened a second bottle.

Apart from the occasional snipe between Alice and Brian, the meal went much better than Rita had anticipated. She even pitched in on the family cleanup, which extended from clearing the table and washing the dishes to making the final preparations for the party. She was just coming back from the dining room as the caterers arrived and she heard her uncle mutter, "If I'd known she could cook like that, I wouldn't have wasted the money."

Rita snickered and her uncle turned and grabbed her suddenly by the arm. "Come here. Gillian, you too." Her cousin looked up from cleaning the table in the dining room and followed them into the rec room.

Her uncle shut the door. "Listen, you two. I want you on your best behavior tonight. I only ask this once a year. Rita, when someone asks you what you're studying, answer politely and don't rule out law school." "Someone" in this case was Jack Anderson, Rita knew. "And, Gillian . . ." He sighed. "Don't mention your condition. Rita, don't mention yours either."

"What 'condition'?" Rita said.

"You know what I mean. Him." He gestured out the door.

"Oh, Dad," Gillian said, "Get into the twenty-first century."

"No kidding," Rita said.

"We can discuss terminology later." Her uncle's eyes were twitching. "I just want this party to be uneventful. You hear me, young lady?"

"Uh-huh," Rita said, but Gillian could already see the wheels turning in her head. Her uncle could too.

"I mean it." He lowered his voice. "If you want any help raising that baby, I want you to behave yourself like a proper member of this family. Have I made myself understood?"

"Yes," Rita said sullenly.

"All right. Then come help clean up." He opened the rec room door and gestured to the living room.

"I'm cleaning in here," Gillian said.

"I'll help you finish." Rita picked up a TV Guide from the couch and walked over to the cabinet with it. Her uncle watched for a moment, then walked away.

When he was out of earshot, Rita said, "Holy crap, Gillian."

"He does not know me," Gillian growled.

"I can't believe he would use your baby as leverage to get you to behave at a party!"

"Oh, I can believe it. You didn't hear about little Maria Anderson." She said the name mockingly.

"Uh-oh." Rita vaguely remembered a young girl in a prim dress looking on disapprovingly as she and her cousin threw food at each other during a company picnic.

"Getting married in May to a doctor, a rich doctor."

"That must have driven Uncle Hal crazy."

"He only mentioned it once and then never said another word. I'm sure it was eating him up." Gillian stabbed savagely at a dust bunny. "That's why I broke up with Jake. Dad had him so down on himself that it was pathetic, because he wasn't going to med school or anything. I had to let him go. So Dad got what he wanted."

"So you picked up Mark to confuse him? Unknown jock and a different species."

Gillian grinned at Rita. "He raised the stakes, I raised him right back."

Rita leaned against the doorframe. "He never used to be this bad. Before, I mean."

"We weren't adults before. He's still trying to control us."

Rita shook her head. "I think you grew up faster than I did."

"Us females do that," Gillian said, polishing the coffee table. She appeared to have forgiven Rita for sleeping with Mark, at least temporarily now that they were faced with a common enemy.

"We just have to get through this party and then sleep through church and it'll all be over."

"You're such an optimist," Gillian said. "I can handle it in here. Go finish up out there. God forbid Mrs. Anderson finds dust behind the painting."

"All right." Rita grinned and paused at the doorway. "You going to be okay?"

The grin Gillian gave Rita back, had her uncle seen it, would have gotten her locked in her room until New Year's Day. "Oh, I'll be fine," she said. "I'll be fine."

Rita passed the dining room on her way back to the living room and saw that her uncle was still in the room with Alice and Brian, who were at least not at each other's throats. They were watching each other coolly while Alice was talking about some concert she and Rita had gone to. Rita only caught the words,

"They played 'Eternal Flame' and it was so romantic," before she was around the corner and out of earshot. She grinned and bet herself that Alice wouldn't tell Brian about having thrown up on the way home.

The doorbell rang ten minutes later and because she was tired of wiping the window ledges, Rita ran to get it. She opened the door and saw the tall, athletic man standing on the doorstep in an awkward-looking light blue suit that he filled out rather well.

Mark met her eyes and smiled, but it was a polite smile of recognition more than anything else. "Oh, hey," he said. "Party's not started yet, I hope."

"Oh, uh, no," Rita said. The previous night's memory had slammed back to her, full force, and she was fighting an arousal again before she knew it. "Come on in. Living room's almost clean."

Her uncle looked distinctly relieved to see the man. "Hi, Mark, come on in. We've got wine in the dining room."

"Thanks," Mark said. He walked in without another look at Rita.

"Close the door," Rita's uncle snapped, "and go get changed. Guests will be showing up in twenty minutes." He headed for the rec room, calling "Gillian, time to get changed!"

Rita closed the door and walked slowly toward the stairs, feeling annoyed at Mark. Did he not remember last night? It would've been nice to have some acknowledgement, like a wink or something to show that they'd shared a secret, even if it didn't mean anything. He'd probably either blocked it out or he didn't remember it at all. Rita shrugged and went upstairs to change.

When she came down, her aunt had turned on all the lights and put up even more decorations, though Rita wouldn't have thought it possible. She made the quick tour of her favorite decorations: the wreath on the door with pine cones that still held an improbable scent after thirteen years and reminded her of pine forests, the simple mobile of Christmas stars, calm and elegant amidst the shouting clamor of the other décor, and finally the old cloth reindeer she'd made in second grade.

Then there were her least favorites. Narrowing that list down was hard. The Santa Clause with a stain that looked like blood on his mouth and a cracked ear and sinisterly narrowed eyes that made him look like a gangster? The dancing elves who shrieked "Jingle Bell Rock" whenever anyone came too close to them? In the end, she couldn't top the ornament that held a miniature of a 1950s painting in which Santa Clause had been surprised by two sleepy cubs in what looked like the act of molesting one of his reindeer (who seemed, appropriately, half-terrified and half-ecstatic). Staring at it, she wondered if her childhood had been affected by this ornament at all. Certainly she couldn't remember a time when they hadn't had it. Probably one of Grandpa's or something, she thought. Creepy old fox.

The rec room door was closed and when she approached it, she heard Mark and Gillian's voices, sharp with the edges of an argument. Sure what it was about, she slunk away and sat in the dining room with Alice and Brian, who by now were talking about books they'd read. At least they weren't fighting anymore. Rita found that both relaxing and a little disappointing, but when Brian put a paw over hers, Alice didn't even react and she supposed that was all for the best. She joined in the conversation and actually enjoyed herself up to the point where the first guests arrived and her uncle dragged her out to be presented to them.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The party started off calmly enough. The Andersons made all the appropriate remarks about how lovely the house was and how much Rita and Gillian had grown, and it was so lucky the chances Richie was getting in Europe. Jon Anderson, who was a year younger than Rita, was going to California and had made dean's list his first semester, but Rita paid special attention to Maria, the girl her age who had apparently worn her wedding dress to the party. It was bright white, with lace over the shoulders and a small sprig of holly as a concession to the season. It flowed around behind her so awkwardly that Rita was tempted more than once to take up the edge and walk around behind her like a child holding the train.

She was pretty, no doubt about that, with ribbons in her styled hair and makeup applied artfully around the eyes. But every time Rita edged close enough to hear her talk, she was saying, "My fiancé," or "George is a doctor, of course," or "The wedding" or some combination of those three. Rita quickly grew bored of listening to her and roamed the party looking for other entertainment.

By this time, Brian and Alice had joined the crowd and Brian caught up to Rita first. "This is pretty nice," he said, enunciating so carefully that Rita knew he was trying to hide the fact that he was quite tipsy. He hadn't started wagging his tail all over yet, but his eyes were a little unfocused. He took another drink from his cup and wiped eggnog off his muzzle.

"You know that some of the eggnog is spiked, right?" Rita said.

Brian nodded. "I asked your cousin for plain. I don't want to get anymore drunk."

Rita tried to decide whether the smell of alcohol was from the eggnog or from Brian's breath. "I think I'll get some too," she said, wanting the sour tang of rum more than the sweet cream.

"Okay. I'll be right here." Brian smiled at her and parked himself next to the living room Christmas tree. His head was just even with the creepy Santa ornament.

On her way to the eggnog, Rita was accosted by her uncle and presented to the Hathaways, a retired fox couple who lived down the street. Mr. Hathaway had made quite a bit of money in some kind of some sort of energy company or another. Whenever Rita's uncle got hold of some kind of business plan that required investors, the name Hathaway inevitably came up.

"You remember Rita," her uncle said. "She's at UBC now, but we're looking into law schools for her."

"Oh, very nice," the old fox said, shaking Rita's paw. "You've certainly grown up."

"Thank you, sir," Rita said.

"I have a friend on the faculty at ASU," he said. "It's not Stanford or Harvard, but it's a respectable school. Let me know if you need a recommendation when the time comes."

"Thank you, sir," Rita said again. She extracted herself from the conversation.

At the eggnog table, her cousin was serving, which she found slightly odd, but Gillian was also dressed up more than Rita had ever seen her. She had gone all out, with a lovely blue dress that she thought was her aunt's, a fake corsage pinned over her ear, and a lacy forest-green wrap draped over her shoulders. She'd also put in earrings borrowed from her mother, little teardrop diamonds that caught the light and sparkled.

"You look great," Rita said. "Do we have any plain eggnog?"

"Sure. There are kids around. You want some?"

"No way." Rita held out her cup. "I'd take the rum straight up, but that won't be out for a couple hours yet."

She grinned and poured Rita some eggnog. "I'll be gone from here by then. Five more minutes, that's all I agreed to do."

Rita sipped the frothy sweet cream on her way back and almost spilled it when one of the aforementioned kids barreled full force into her legs. "Whoa, there," she said, putting out a paw to the young child, who looked bemusedly up at him and then scampered away, dangerously close to the elegant vase on the side table. Rita paused to move it back further from the edge and was considering whether to remove it altogether when a deep voice spoke at her back.

"Rita, right?"

She turned to see Jon Anderson, a fox about her height, dressed up in a sleek white shirt that was probably silk with a tie on. He and Rita had been playmates at some of the company picnics and parties they'd attended together and had been in the same middle school for two years when Rita was in fifth and sixth grade and Jon in fourth and fifth.

"Jon," he said. He stuck out his paw. "How are you?"

"I'm great, just great," she said. "How about you?"

"Pretty good. You're at UBC, right?"

"Yep. I like it, but I sort of miss the desert."

"You've got some desert out in UBC, right?"

Rita nodded. "It's a couple hours away, though. The ocean's closer."

"The ocean rocks," Jon said with a grin. "Are you still seeing . . . um, what's her name, that girl from high school?"

"Alice?" She saw Alice moving towards her across the room. "Uh, not really."

"Oh. I thought I saw her here."

"You did," Rita said.

Alice joined them just at that moment, putting her hand on Rita's arm. "Hi, Rita. And . . . Jon, is that right?"

"Yeah," he said. "We were just talking about you."

Rita tried to remove Alice's hand from her arm, but couldn't quite do it unobtrusively enough, so she let it stay there.

Alice appeared not to notice Rita's efforts. "I heard about your dean's list, congratulations." Her hand tightened on Rita's arm.

"Oh, thanks," Jon said and his eyes twitched. "It wasn't that big a deal, really. I mean, you know how freshman classes are."

"I'm not in college," Alice said.

Rita, who had gotten a 2.5 and a threatening letter from her uncle in her first semester, stayed silent.

"Oh? What are you doing?" Jon inquired.

"I work at the library and I'm doing some home crafting in my spare time," Alice explained.

Rita endured the description of Alice's jewelry aspirations largely by ignoring it and looking at other arrivals as they came through the door and Jon, from his frequent nods and glances at Rita, appeared no more interested.

"Well, look," he said finally, interrupting Alice in the middle of the detailed process by which melted glass could be shaped into different patterns, "I'm gonna get another drink. It was nice seeing you both."

"Good to see you, too," Rita said. When Jon was out of earshot, she added, "I suppose I could thank you for getting rid of him."

Alice continued to resist Rita's attempts to get her hand off of her arm. "You see, I can be a good companion."

"Alice, I'm with someone. And I'm . . ." She looked around to see if any of her uncle's friends were nearby. Mr. Hathaway was talking to Maria Anderson about ten feet from them, his large black eyes constantly swiveling to take in the room. "Well, you know."

"I know what you think you are," Alice said, "but that doesn't matter even if it is true. You still need a wife, don't you? How are you going to have kids? Who are you going to bring to parties?"

The shine in Alice's eyes was mostly wine-fueled, Rita suspected. "Listen, I'm with someone."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. You people all cheat on each other all the time anyway. It's not like it's a real relationship. I mean, you . . ." She lowered her voice to a loud stage whisper. ". . . slept with that wolf last night."

"Oh, my God." Rita could feel the fur on her back standing up as her ears laid down flat.

"Brian told me. He said how it was really okay because it was just one of those things that happened. Frankly, I'm more surprised at him. I mean, he was dating your cousin and he's a baseball player and everything."

"Oh. My. God." Rita couldn't believe Brian would have told her about such a thing. He must be more drunk than I had thought, she thought to herself. "I gotta go."

"Rita, just think about it." Alice followed her through the increasingly thick crowd of people. "You'll see I'm right. I'll show you . . ."

"Rita!" her aunt cried, sweeping down on her in a hideous red and green dress. Plastic candy canes swung from the base of her ears in wide arcs. "Alice! Oh, look, you're under the mistletoe!"

"Mistletoe's four feet away, Aunt Peggy," Rita said, edging further away from it.

"It has a wide shadow!" Peggy said. Everyone was looking at them now. "Come on . . . a Christmas kiss!"

"For the love of-mmmf!" Rita never finished her sentence since Alice planted herself on her muzzle and wrapped her arms around her like some kind of inexorable sea monster. She kept her lips resolutely closed against the insistence of Alice's tongue and extracted herself from the kiss as soon as possible while the onlookers clapped briefly and then returned to their conversations.

Her aunt was sniffling and wiping joyful tears from her eyes. "It's so beautiful," she panted and wandered off.

Alice's mouth was curved in a happy smirk. Rita wiped her own mouth off and took a swig of eggnog. "Hope you enjoyed that," she said to Alice.

"Didn't you?" Alice asked as Rita walked away.

Rita waved her away, though the fur on her tail felt Alice following her until she got to the Christmas tree where she'd left Brian. Her boyfriend was no longer there.

"Look how pretty the tree is," Alice said, coming up to Rita's side as she looked around.

"Right," Rita said. She twisted her way through a crowd of people, heading toward the kitchen. She hadn't quite made it when she ran into Brian, bearing a tray of some kind of appetizer.

"Hi, hon . . . er, Rita," Brian said. "Your aunt asked me to help serve!" His tail was wagging as though he'd been asked to put the star on the tree.

"Aunt Peggy," Rita said, spotting her aunt on her way back to the kitchen, "Brian's not a servant."

"Of course, darling," Peggy said. "Why don't you and Alice go have some more eggnog? I need to get the drawing pads out."

As Rita turned, Alice took the opportunity to grab her arm again. She cast desperately around and saw Mr. Hathaway nearby. She dragged Alice over to him. "Mr. Hathaway," she said, "have you met Alice? She's a friend of the family. She works at the library and makes jewelry. Tell him about the jewelry." She urged Alice over the fox's faint acknowledgement. She didn't wait for Alice to get started before slipping away, but as she wasn't looking where she was going, she ran smack into Mark. The fox put a paw on her shoulder and grinned down at her.

"Careful," he said.

Rita glared at him, muttered, "Sorry," and ran after Brian. Her boyfriend had put the appetizer tray down and was taking another glass of eggnog from Gillian.

"Hi, Rita," he said. "This is really fun."

"Just wait," Rita said darkly. "Aunt Peggy's getting the Pictionary pads out."

Brian's ears perked up. "Pictionary?"

"Not just Pictionary. A special Christmas version. The clues are all Christmas carols and when the team guesses them, they have to sing them."

"That sounds like fun!"

Rita stared at her boyfriend. "You're serious? Well, you can go play without me."

"Come on. It'll be fun."

"No." At the hurt look and drooping ears, Rita rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't want to pick at childhood scars. You can go ahead, really. I don't mind."

"But it won't be as much fun without you."

Rita barked a short laugh. "Trust me, it'll be more fun."

Brian looked around, then leaned in furtively. "I'll . . . make it up to you later."

Rita grinned. "Yeah, you will. Actually, the games would be a really good time to sneak upstairs."

Brian would probably not have agreed to the suggestion if he weren't drunk, but as it was, Rita noticed him shifting his hips to accommodate his arousal. He nodded with a wide, panting smile. "Okay. I'll leave early and come find you."

"We'll have to go up separately." She grinned back and felt a little aroused herself. "Just catch my eye when you go upstairs."

Her aunt called gaily, "Everyone who wants to play a game, come into the rec room!"

"Go," Rita said.

Brian took off with a grin, tail wagging.

"You're not going?" her cousin said from behind him.

Rita turned to see her standing next to a tray of appetizers, small flaky pastries that smelled of mince. "No." She popped one into her mouth. "And I see you're not, either. Hey, these are pretty good."

"I know. I've had four already." She flicked an ear.

Rita saw her uncle coming toward them. Cold air swirled around her; he must have just come in from outside. His red shirt and green tie were almost as bad as Rita's aunt's dress.

"I want the both of you in there to play the game," he said.

"She's got plenty of people," Rita argued.

"And I'm helping out the caterers," Gillian said.

"You two are really spoiled brats. If you don't care enough about your family to participate . . ."

Across the room, Diana Anderson's cackling laughter rang out, distracting her uncle. "That's her third glass of wine. She really can't hold her liquor." He looked very pleased by these circumstances. "Rita, get the vase off the sideboard." Her aunt was a happy drunk, but Mrs. Anderson was a clumsy drunk.

"Sure," Rita said. She moved to do the task before her uncle could reiterate his order to play the Christmas game. She cradled the vase in her arms and paused in the living room, looking for somewhere safe to put it. She decided to put it on the back porch. There was a corner behind her uncle's bar where it would be out of the way. She pushed through the dining room and past the caterers in the kitchen.

When she got to the back porch, it was deserted save for a few cocktail glasses, undoubtedly because it was much colder than the previous night. Her breath hung in front of her without dissipating now. She put the vase down, turned around, and jumped when she saw Alice standing on the porch, having apparently materialized out of nowhere.

"Hi, Rita," she said. "Kinda cold out here, isn't it?"

"I was just heading back inside." Rita tried to get around her, but Alice stepped to one side and back to block her.

"What's your hurry? Your boyfriend is singing 'The First Noel' in there, but I can keep you warm out here."

There were few things as unpleasant as being hugged by someone Rita would rather not be hugging, but one of them is being hugged sexually by someone she would really rather not be hugging. Alice ground her hips up against Rita's crotch and tried to kiss her again, but Rita managed to angle her muzzle out of the way before she could. She settled for pressing her face into Rita's neck, her paws groping down to her rump.

Ears flat, Rita tried to push her away. "Hey," she said roughly, "listen. I don't know what my mother told you, but really, I don't-mmf!" Alice had taken advantage of her talking to kiss her again. This time, she managed to get her tongue inside Rita's mouth. It reeked of wine and rum, getting the alcoholic smell up into Rita's nasal cavity.

The smell was so strong that it dazed Rita; it was a moment before she was able to spit out Alice's tongue and get her paws between them. Alice really was surprisingly strong and fairly determined. "Alice, please, just stop it."

Alice pressed closer to her. "No. Not until you recognize what's good for you."

"What's good for me? How do you or anyone else know what that is?"

"You certainly don't," Alice replied. "Throwing your life away. What we had was special, you know that as well as I do. It just didn't work because of the sex. But now I know what you like . . ." She lowered her voice. "I can be a bit boyish, you know." Her paw reached down under Rita's tail.

That was the spur Rita needed to match her determination and strength. She squirmed free of Alice and stood panting on the porch. "You're drunk. You should go sober up before you go around groping people."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Alice said. "Groping? We know each other. We had our first sex together. No. I let you go once and I'm not going to make that mistake again."

Incredulous, and getting colder in the night air, Rita considered her options. She couldn't get back in the house because Alice was in the way. She could go out the back porch and around the front. Or she could try to brain Alice with the vase. Even though, she thought, she wasn't actually starring in a slapstick comedy, the last solution had more than a little appeal right now. "Look, I'm sorry you haven't found anyone since we broke up. But remember when we broke up and you said you were okay with it?"

"I was then," Alice cried, "but when you left, I didn't realize how much I missed you. You didn't have the right to break up with me."

"The right? The right? I can't be happy with you! That doesn't give me the right?"

"I don't know why you're being so mean." Alice was trying to act despondent, but Rita could see the gleam in her eyes. Alice thought she could make Rita feel guilty. "I even like Brian. You could still see him a couple times a week. I'm bending over backwards for you."

"Listen to me," Rita said, "I . . . do not . . , want . . . you."

"That doesn't have to matter," Alice said softly.

Rita shook his head. "You don't get it! Let's talk when you sober up." She took a chance and pushed past Alice. This time Alice didn't stop her, though she was afraid Alice would. S\he stole a cookie from the caterers' trays as she went through the kitchen and shook her head, moving through the dining room and to the back of the staircase, where a window opened onto the back porch. Putting her nose to the window, she saw the door close and guessed Alice had come back in. "Drunk people," she muttered to herself, then, more to say the words than because it was true, "Gosh, I need a rim job."

"Say what?" She turned and saw Mark nearby in his blue suit, a cookie in his paw.

"Uh . . . sorry. Just having a frustrating conversation."

"I saw. I thought I would have to come out there and break you two up." The wolf grinned and tossed the cookie into his mouth.

"We're already broken up. What business is it of yours anyway? Why were you watching us?"

Mark shrugged. "Just saw her follow you out there. Didn't look like a scene you wanted to be part of. But I didn't want to just walk out into it."

"No." She paused, squinted up at the wolf as an off-key "We Three Kings" burst from the rest of the house, causing both their ears to go flat for a moment. "Why are you so worried?"

Mark grinned. "I don't know. Seems like you're having a tough time, is all."

"You just want another ride on the porch?" Rita folded her arms.

"If you want. Looks like your ex came in, so it's empty out there."

"That's not what I . . . oh, hi, Aunt Janine." Her uncle's older sister had spotted her and come over to pinch her ears and tell her how tall she'd gotten. "This is Mark, Gillian's boyfriend."

Mark extended a paw. "Ex-boyfriend."

"Oh, my." Aunt Janine looked back and forth between them. "Well, it's Christmas, you'll make up. Rita, look how big you are! How are you liking college?"

"It's fine," Rita replied, shrugging her shoulders.

They moved back to the living room, where Rita told Aunt Janine about college through "O Holy Night", "Rudolph", and "Howl to the Star", the only Christmas carol she really liked because it was one of the few times she could howl as a child. In the middle of that last one, Gillian came over and Mark excused himself while Aunt Janine pinched Gillian's ears (more carefully because of her earrings) and told her how big she'd gotten.

"Yeah," Gillian said.

Aunt Janine leaned forward curiously, sniffing the air.

Rita saw Brian come out of the rec room, humming to himself and weaving a bit as he made his way to the stairs. He caught Rita's eye and winked. He made his way up the stairs slowly.

"Gillian," Aunt Janine said, "are you . . . okay?" She looked not only at Gillian's muzzle, but also down at her belly. At least, Rita thought, if she did guess the secret, Aunt Janine was not one to go blabbing all over the place.

"I'm fine," Gillian said. "Do you want some eggnog?"

"Yes, dear, but you'd better go make up with your boyfriend."

"Yeah, why don't you do that?" Rita suggested. "I need to, um, go do something."

"Fine," Gillian said. "I'll go find Mark and make up. While I'm doing that, Rita, you can get Aunt Janine her eggnog."

Rita looked at the stairs, then at her aunt's muzzle.

"Oh, I can find it myself," she said.

"No, that's okay." It wouldn't hurt to let a few more minutes go by, as much as she felt herself getting aroused again at the thought of getting up the stairs and shutting herself in her room with Brian.

"Well, tell me about this girl of yours. Alice, is it?" Aunt Janine walked alongside Rita as she made her way back to the living room. "I saw you kissing earlier. You do make a nice couple. She's the one you were-"

"We're not dating," Rita said.

"Oh." Aunt Janine chuckled softly to herself. "Well, you never know what the magic of Christmas will bring. Maybe you will be again soon."

"I doubt it. Here's the eggnog. Plain or, um, enhanced?"

"I'll have the rum." Aunt Janine smiled and held out a paw.

Rita poured her a spiked eggnog.

"Delicious," Aunt Janine said. "Your aunt's still buying that White Paw Rum, I see. It goes well with the eggnog."

Aunt Janine kept Rita's attention for a few more minutes, then she managed to disengage herself and get back to the stairs. She got only a third of the way up before her uncle's voice stopped her in her tracks. "Rita!"

She leaned over the banister. "What?"

"Where are you going?"

"Just upstairs for a minute."

"Come back down. We've only got two carols left and you're going to help finish the game. The Andersons are winning. We can't have that."

The forced jokiness in her uncle's tone set Rita's teeth on edge. "Uncle Hal, nobody wins at that game. You're all losers." Her attempt to copy her uncle's irreverent tone failed.

The older fox glowered and lowered his ears. "Get down here now."

Rita looked up and then sighed before marching back down. Brian could wait another ten minutes, hopefully, without passing out. She trailed behind her uncle back to the rec room, eyes down.

"Mark, if you want to, you can join us. You're part of the clan." Her uncle had stopped in front of the tall wolf.

Rita looked up in moderate surprise.

Mark shrugged. "Sure."

"I guess my cousin didn't come find you," Rita said as they entered the rec room. "I didn't think she would."

Mark's reply was drowned out by the chorus of "Hark, the Herald Angels Howl" from the opposing team, then by the effusive hugs of her aunt telling them how much fun they were going to have and how happy she was that they'd come to play. Rita folded her arms and wished her aunt could be happy for her without being drunk at a party.

The last carol their group got was "Deck the Halls", one of Rita's least favorites, but she guessed it quickly and then sang "fa la la la la" gamely along with her family and Mark. Then, while her aunt was still thanking everyone for playing, she escaped the room.

The wolf followed her. "Why was your cousin looking for me?"

Rita started up the stairs again. "Oh, she told Aunt Janine she was going to find you to make up or something. But I didn't think she would."

Mark came up the stairs as well. As Rita turned in annoyance, he said, "She was looking in the wrong place. I saw her go up there a while back."

Rita's fur prickled and she felt a chill. She turned and looked up the stairs and then back at Mark. She suddenly realized what her cousin was up to. "Oh, that slut," she bellowed. She ran up the stairs.

The door to her room was slightly ajar. She hesitated outside it while Mark came up beside her. Gillian's door was wide open and her room was empty and so was the bathroom. She didn't want to go into her room, but she felt she had to. She reached for the doorknob, then pulled her paw back as she heard a low moan, a sound she'd only heard Brian make with her in bed.

Mark heard it too and reached past her to pull the door shut gently. "Come on," he suggested. He pulled Rita into Gillian's room, closing the door behind them.

"I can't believe she'd do that," she said, sitting on the bed. "She did it deliberately. She got him drunk and then kept me out of the way while she came up here . . ."

"Well," Mark said, "you know, she was pretty upset about last night."

"Yeah, but that was an accident!"

The wolf grinned, his ears cast down, and sat cross-legged on the floor, looking up the fox on the black bedspread. "Look, uh, Rita, I've seen a lot of accidents. You didn't accidentally bend over and I didn't accidentally do you."

"But . . . I mean, I didn't deliberately set it up like that. She is such a conniving, backstabbing . . ." She trailed off. Her arousal had gone away briefly, but recalling the previous night was bringing it back. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"What do you mean?" Mark looked sincerely curious.

"I mean . . . you were such a prick all through high school. Remember the toilet and . . . my science project and . . ." She was getting angry all over again, but Mark didn't seem fazed or guilty.

":Oh. That was just kid stuff, you know? You seem like a nice girl. Gillian talks about you a lot. Plus, you're kinda cute."

"Kid stuff?" But of course, Mark Winter hadn't been her only tormentor, not even the worst. He'd just been one in a line of people determined to make school miserable for Rita.

"Yeah. Sorry." Again, he seemed sincere. When Rita looked at him, he flicked his eyes deliberately at Rita's rear. "I'll lick your butt if it'll make you feel better."

Rita looked around at her cousin's room, the pink of her middle school years covered with a layer of black, the posters of bubble gum pop torn down and replaced with angry women screaming into microphones. "In Gillian's room?"

Mark nodded to the wall. "She's humping your boyfriend in your room."

"Well . . ." She was fully aware of the fact that she shouldn't say yes, but too hard and aroused and angry to say no. "It won't make me feel worse. But you don't have to."

"It's okay." Mark got down on his knees. "I kinda want to anyway." He put one paw on Rita's thigh and gripped her ankles, clamping her legs together. He pushed up until Rita was lying on her back, her rear pointed at the wolf's waiting tongue.

The red fox moaned softly at the electricity of the touch. Her tail thumped against the bed. "Why?"

Mark grinned, paw working at lubricating Rita's anus. "I haven't licked a lot of butts, so maybe I don't know the protocol and all, but I've never been asked why." He slid a paw underneath the fox's vertical body and wrapped his paw around Rita's waist. "I don't know. I like it. You're cute, and you're having a pretty bad day. Plus, you know, it's Christmas." His fingers drew Rita's tail out of the way, leaving Rita, who was accustomed to sex under the covers in the dark, to do nothing but watch raptly as the wolf drew his tongue up her butt to her vulva.

The soft pink tongue left glistening trails of moisture on her rear, trails of pleasure through her body. Her paws clenched the sheets and she exhaled, her body tense. She tried to will it to relax as Mark licked up again, holding her with one paw while his tongue explored Rita's behind, tasting the moisture leaking from the tip of her vagina and swirling around the sensitive areas until Rita let out her breath in a gasping squeak. "For not having done this much," she panted, "you're pretty good."

Mark grinned and flicked his ears in appreciation. Between licks, he said, "Well . . . you know, us athletes . . . we're a pretty erotic bunch."

"If only I'd known," Rita moaned, "I would've gone out for more spor-orrrrrrts!" Mark had slid his warm muzzle down over the entrance of Rita's anus, sucking on it as he licked. His other paw was now holding his rapidly swelling knot, massaging it as he licked. He curled his ears down, focusing on his muzzle as he pumped it up and down.

It was over almost too quickly, but Rita was seriously worked up and on edge. The wolf's tongue and muzzle had no difficulty bringing her to a shuddering, yipping climax. Mark kept his shaft imprisoned as he came, exhaling warmly and tasting Rita's orgasm. He held it in his muzzle until Rita had lain back, panting and moaning happily. Then the wolf drew his lips up and off of the fox's twitching tail, held up a finger with a grin, and disappeared across the hall to the bathroom.

Rita lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and panting. Nothing occupied her mind but the pleasure she'd just had. When Mark came back and sat next to her, she hadn't even bothered to sit up. She turned to the wolf and smiled.

"Feel better?" Mark said.

"Yeah." Rita glanced at the wall beyond which her cousin and Brian were still presumably going at it. "I do. Thanks."

Mark grinned. "You can return the favor for me sometime."

"I will," Rita said sincerely.

"Not now, though. I'll get back down to the party. See you there. Don't sweat it with your boyfriend. He was probably pretty wasted."

"Yeah, I know. I'm more mad at my cousin, but I'm sure I can work things out with Brian. It'll be fine." Brian cheating on her was much less an issue after she'd had her second meeting with Mark. At least, as long as she didn't think about who Brian had cheated with.

"Your cousin's a good girl. She just needs to get that not everything is about her."

"Believe me, I know." Rita sat up. "She always does that. I think she gets it from her parents."

"Maybe." Mark grinned. "I know your family seems pretty cool, but this season does somethin' to them."

"Tell me about it." Rita rolled her eyes. "Anyway . . . thanks again. I feel a lot better."

"Thought you would. A rim job always cheers me up." Mark patted her leg and stood up. "See ya down there."

Rita watched the wolf's tail wagging slowly as he walked out. She listened for the creak of his step on the stairs. She lay back on the bed again and contemplated not going back down, just staying upstairs until the party was over and it was time to leave for church. Fifteen minutes before, she would have closed her eyes and shut the door, but now she felt better, more at peace with the world.

When she stepped into the hall, she noticed that the door to her room was still closed. When she pressed her ear to the door, she heard only soft breathing. Gingerly, she opened it and saw Brian passed out on her bed, shirt rolled up to his chest, the tip of his member poking out of his damp white fur. His eyes were closed and his tongue lolling out of his muzzle as he slept, peaceful and happy.

Rita covered him with a blanket and walked out, closing the door again as she did. From downstairs she heard strains of "Deck the Halls" again, and winced as she walked down to rejoin the party.

Her cousin kept trying to catch her eye, but for the next hour Rita managed to avoid her, dodging from one guest to another and sending tipsy relatives and friends to intercept her. She saw Mark occasionally, once standing beside her cousin and once talking to their Aunt Janine. The wolf looked so bored that Rita started over to rescue him, but got trapped along the way by Maria and Diana Anderson, and only barely rescued the wreath on their door from Diana's elbows when she made an expansive gesture.

Her aunt was running another party game, but it was a low-key game that involved making up Christmas limericks. Various pads and pencils were being passed around the party for each guest to contribute a line and then pass it on to another. Rita added one line: to "As Santa Clause got on his sleigh," she wrote, "His reindeer said, 'No freakin' way!'" After that, she passed on the pads as they came her way and plotted how she would escape when her aunt assembled everyone to read the limericks.

With an hour to go until the end of the party, she felt she was on the downhill stretch. If the worst thing that happened to her was the incident on the porch with Alice, this wouldn't be a bad party. Alice had been avoiding her since she came down from upstairs, or else she too had passed out somewhere.

She overheard Jack Anderson talking to her uncle. She stood nearby so that she could hear. Her uncle's ears were tightly focused on Jack, but the other fox looked pretty drunk, his ears wandering aimlessly around, tail puffed out a bit and wagging erratically.

"Great party this year, Hal," Jack was saying. "I really like what you did with the food."

"Thanks, Jack," her uncle replied. "Diana's looking well. Congratulations on Maria's wedding."

"Well, you know, he's an orthodontist, so at least the kids will have straight teeth." Jack Anderson had an annoying laugh, which he brought out to accompany this remark.

Rita's uncle laughed his polite laugh. "It's great that she's ready for marriage already."

"Don't worry, I'm sure Gillian will find someone soon. Maybe she'll get back together with that baseball player. He looks like a good kid."

"Well, she's at that age where she doesn't really know what's good for her. We try to tell her, but she gets her fur up and just won't listen, you know?"

"Sometimes she just needs to hear it from someone else. Hang on.

Rita followed the older fox's ears and eyes as he scanned the party. She saw Gillian some fifteen feet away, talking to Abel, Aunt Janine's son. She noticed that Gillian looked moody and more than a little tipsy herself. She started forward to interrupt Jack before he could say anything, but she wasn't fast enough.

"Hey, Gillian," Jack called above the crowd. She turned to look at him, and so did half the people in the living room. "When you gonna get back together with that wolf? You guys make a cute couple." This remark killed most of the conversation in the room.

Rita winced. She couldn't decide whether Jack was trying to be progressive by supporting a inter-special couple, or trying to embarrass her uncle by pointing out his daughter's inter-special relationship. Probably the latter, though he could always claim the former. Probably he was annoyed that the party had gone off so well. If that was the case, then Gillian's reply made Jack Anderson deliriously happy.

She stared at him for a long, silent moment, long enough for her father to clear his throat and say, "Hey, Jack, how about . . ." But he never got a chance to finish his remark.

"When am I going to get back together with the father of my unborn child?" Gillian said, in a voice that was now attracting the attention of people out in the foyer. "Never! You want to know why?" The deathly silence was an affirmative answer that she didn't need because she barreled on regardless. "Because I caught him doing my cousin!"

Rita could clearly hear eight ticks of the living room clock before any other sound reached her ears. Her uncle took that long to recover. He was the first to move. Shooting an angry look at the stunned Jack Anderson, he pushed his way to Gillian and said, "Come on, sweetheart, you've had too much to drink." He pulled her forcibly out of the living room.

And then everyone turned to look at Rita. Her fur rose on the back of her neck. There was nowhere for her to look to avoid the dozens of eyes staring at her. Jack Anderson's look of bewilderment was becoming one of those smugly superior smirks that bigots get when they found out Rita was a slut. And before the murmur of conversation had fully resumed, Rita clearly heard a young child's voice say, "Mommy, what's-"

That broke the spell. She heard the mother begin to say, "Not, now, honey, we have to leave," followed by a loud murmur of conversation. Jack Anderson said, "Jealous of your sister?" but she ignored the comment, pushing her way out of the living room.

People kept looking at her, only now it was out of the corners of their eyes. Their ears swiveled to follow her as she walked by. The hot flush she'd felt in the aftermath of her cousin's remark didn't go away. She passed her aunt, who was standing just outside the kitchen with a sheaf of limericks in her paw. "Oh, Rita, listen to this one," she said, but she pushed past her. "What's the matter?" she cried after her.

The caterers had packed up and the kitchen was empty. She shoved the screen door open and stepped into the cold of the back porch, panting.

The cold air calmed her as she filled her lungs. She leaned against the wall. Glancing to her left, she saw the red glow of a cigarette in the dark shadows outside the spread of the porch light. For a moment, she tried to recall whether her uncle had invited any bobcats; most canines hated tobacco, but cats and rodents, with their less sensitive noses, often indulged. They didn't know any rodents, but there was a family of bobcats that lived nearby.

The mystery was dispelled with another breath. It wasn't tobacco. It was the milder and more illegal drug, which Rita had tried a couple times in college. Mark strolled into the fringe of the light, half his face in the shadow and an abashed grin on his muzzle. "Didn't figure anyone would be out here." He tilted his ears. "You okay? You look bad."

"Why does she have to try so hard to ruin everything?"

"I don't know. What'd she do?"

Rita took a breath of cold, to steady herself. "She announced to the whole party that you're the father of her unborn child and that she caught us sleeping together."

Mark took a drag and exhaled. "Whew. I can see that might upset you." He extended his paw to Rita. "Want a toke?"

"Sure." Rita put the joint between her lips and inhaled, tasting the mildly heady drug and the scent of the wolf.

Mark moved a little closer. "Are you upset that she's doing it, or that she's doing it better than you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rita stared at him.

"Oh, when we went to the party last night, all the way there she was just talking about you bringing Brian and how you were trying to get kicked out of the family Christmas before she did. I don't really understand any of it, frankly."

"Even after tonight?"

"Your family didn't seem that bad. They go a little crazy around Christmas, but so does everyone."

"I've always hated Christmas."

"Always?"

"Well, no. I mean, when I was a kid, it was great, all colored lights and presents and fun. But now it just seems like an excuse for people to get drunk and yell at each other."

From the kitchen, faintly, they heard her aunt calling, "Rita? Rita, are you out there?"

"Crap," she said, handing the joint back to Mark. "I don't want to go back in. I'm sure not going to church now." She opened the screen door at the back of the porch. "I guess . . . great."

Mark hustled her down the stairs and into the shadows just as the inner screen door opened. "Rita?" they heard her aunt say, then she sniffed audibly and called back inside, "It smells funny out there."

"What's the matter now?" Mark said softly.

"We drove here in Brian's car. He's passed out upstairs with the keys in his pocket."

The wolf held up a set of keys that jingled softly. "Wanna get out of here?"

Rita grinned. "You're a lifesaver."

"Think of me as a Christmas angel." He put out the joint and stowed it carefully in his shirt pocket as he walked briskly across the yard to where a line of cars were parked.

"Do I have to?" Rita hurried after him, tail wagging.

"Well, it is Christmas. I'm doing you a favor. But you don't have to." Mark owned a sporty two-seater that started with a wonderful growl. He pulled away while Rita was still buckling her seatbelt. "I think you have this Christmas thing all wrong. It's just supposed to be about people being nice to each other."

"Why does that have to be a certain time of year?" Rita said, watching her house's roof lights disappear in the rear view mirror. "Why can't we just decide to be nice to each other all the time?"

"You know, here's the thing. For me, Christmas is always just a time when I get to kick back and think about people and remember to do nice things. I get busy, you know, and sometimes I don't do things that I wish I had. So once a year I'm always thinking about it."

"What is this, some kind of after-school special about the true meaning of Christmas?"

"I don't even know the true meaning. I just know what it means for me."

"Tell it to my family."

"Yeah, well, you can't let them ruin your Christmas for you. You gotta make your own Christmas season if you don't get any help from them."

"Easy for you to say."

Mark laughed. "Yeah, I guess it is. So where we going?"

"Don't care." Rita leaned back in the seat and watched the town go by. She glanced over at the wolf, relaxing back in his seat and controlling the car with one sure paw on the wheel. Mark's blue suit was missing its jacket, probably left back at her house. He filled out the shirt nicely. Looking at the erect member made Rita smile. "Hey, I still owe you something."

Mark saw where her eyes were and grinned, leaning back in his seat to give Rita access. The fox slid out from under the seatbelt and reached over. By the time she had her paw wrapped around it, the wolf was nice and hard. She slid her paw up and down the warm hard member until Mark said, "Getting a bit cold."

"Sorry." Rita grinned and leaned over, slipping the wolf into her muzzle. She felt the wolf's arm across her shoulders and a moment later the car was filled with the sounds of some chorus or another singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Rita closed her eyes and let the spirit of Christmas fill her.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Rita opened the door and waved Gillian inside.

"Here, take Ethan, please," Gillian pleaded, thrusting the baby into Rita's arms.

The fox wagged her tail and took the bundle, holding it in one arm and wiggling her finger over the baby's muzzle with the other. "Hi, Ethan! Are you fussing? Are you driving Mommy crazy?" The baby cooed and laughed and waved at Rita's finger.

"No," Gillian said, "I just have to go to the bathroom."

"Where's Brian?" Rita called after her retreating tail.

"Parking. He dropped me off."

Rita grinned and bounced the baby as the bathroom door slammed.

When Gillian came out of the bathroom, she said, "Thanks again for letting us stay here."

"No problem," Rita said. "It's Christmas now. We should have some kind of family around."

Gillian started to say something, but the door opened and Brian walked in, hefting a big bag over his shoulder. "Ho, ho, ho!" he called. "Merry Christmas!"

Rita and Gillian both laughed as the dog closed the door and joined them. "Hi, sweetie," he said, tapping the baby on the nose. Ethan laughed and grabbed his paw.

"He's gotten big since the last time we saw him," Rita said.

"Sure has," Brian said, leaning down to nuzzle Rita. "And he's cute, too! I'm sorry I'm not the father."

"He'd be even cuter then," Rita said.

Brian laughed, leaning down to kiss her. "You like holding him? You wanna look around for a baby for us to adopt?"

Rita kissed the dog, then grinned. "Nah, I'm okay just being an aunt for now." She handed the baby back to Gillian and settled into a warmer hug from Brian, her back to the dog's chest. "So what happened with Jake this time?"

"Oh, same old, same old," Gillian said. "I'll call him after Christmas and we'll get back together."

"Well, you can always stay here," Brian said. "Happy to pick you up at the bus station anytime."

Rita nodded her head in agreement.

"So it's been a few months now," Gillian said, rocking the baby and looking back and forth at the two of them. "Working out okay?"

"Yeah," Rita said, squeezing the dog's paw. "I think so. Brian found a baseball team around here to play with."

"And Rita's learning how to relax and doing better in school." Brian nuzzled the fox's ears.

Gillian grinned. "Good. I'm gonna go feed Ethan."

"I'll get your room set up," Brian said. He released Rita with a nuzzle to the ears and Rita snuck in a grope between the dog's legs once Gillian had her back turned. Brian's tail wagged as he walked into the spare room.

"I heard from Mark and Alice," Rita said, standing by Gillian as she rummaged through the bag. "They're spending Christmas with Aunt Peggy and Uncle Hal before going to Brian's family's place. They're as happy as, well, Christmas elves."

"I knew he wasn't really into you," Gillian said.

"Oh, he's into me," Rita said. "Trust me."

"Well, maybe." She found Ethan's formula and headed for the kitchen. Rita grabbed the bag and followed her. "When's Richie getting here?"

"Tomorrow. He couldn't get a flight from New York 'til then."

"Funny that he came back from Amsterdam this year."

Rita laughed. "He didn't tell you? He told me last month. He was only in Amsterdam that first year. After that, he just stayed at college and said he was in Amsterdam. The family he stayed with there liked him a lot and sent his mail on."

Gillian stared at her, bouncing Ethan while she waited for the formula to heat. "That's insane. I wish I'd thought of that."

Rita chuckled. "I know. And now he's coming here. Funny, we had to leave home to be a family."

"That's pretty," Gillian said. "You read that in one of your classes?"

Rita laughed and took Ethan while she got the bottle ready. "I practiced it."

"Well, it sounds nice." She looked at Rita. "Thanks, again for letting us stay."

"Hey," Rita said, "you introduced me to Mark. I owe you. You sure it's okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine," she said. "I'm not mad at you anymore. I'm glad you and Brian are happy. It gives me something to torment Mom and Dad about when I talk to them."

"They know he's not Ethan's father, right?"

"Oh, yeah. They're glad I'm trying to make it work with Jake."

"Are you?"

Gillian shrugged, taking Ethan back and bouncing him while he slurped from the bottle. "Not really. Just 'til something better comes along. He's a spineless wimp who lets anyone older than him tell him what to do."

"Hope you find something soon." Rita saw movement outside the kitchen and followed Brian into the living room, where the dog was putting some Christmas carols on their little boombox. "Howl to the Star" came over the speakers and Rita wagged her tail as Brian turned around. "You're under the mistletoe."

Brian looked around. "I thought you said you weren't going to get any."

"I didn't. But it casts a wide shadow." They hugged, touched noses, and Rita smiled. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
